Текст книги "Serpents Among the Ruins "

Автор книги: David George

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Sulu did not hesitate. “Shut them down, Xintal.”

“Acknowledged,” Linojj said. Her hands fluttered across her panel, working to bring the impulse drive offline.

“Rafe,” Sulu said, “can you tell—”

“Captain,” Linojj interrupted, startled to find herself fighting a losing battle with the helm controls. “I can’t shut down the port reactor.” She scanned her readouts for the ship’s current velocity. “We’re at three-quarters impulse and still accelerating.”

“Rafe?” Sulu asked, her voice firm, her manner serious but composed.

“The core is pulling in more fuel than it should, keeping the reaction hot,” Buonarroti said. “Let me shut down the deuterium stream.”

“Radiation is beginning to increase significantly,” Tenger said. “The temperature in the core is spiking.”

“Eighty percent of full impulse,” Linojj said.

“It’s not working,” Buonarroti said, turning from the engineering station to face Sulu. “The deuterium-flow regulator reads fully functional, but it’s not controlling the influx of fuel into the reactor. I need to go down there.”

“Go,” Sulu said immediately.

Buonarroti jogged around the chair in front of the engineering station and raced for the starboard turbolift. “Gray,” he said, calling across to the port side of the bridge, where Lieutenant Trent sat at the library-computer console. “You’re with me.” The ship’s chief computer scientist took only a second to secure his station, then hurried around the perimeter of the bridge, past the main viewscreen, and joined Buonarroti in the turbolift. The doors glided closed after them.

Sulu stepped back down to the center section of the bridge and paced over to stand beside Linojj. “What do you think?” Sulu asked quietly. “Did they do this?” She did not have to identify whom she meant by they;Linojj had already wondered herself if the ship had been sabotaged.

“I don’t know,” Linojj said, looking up at Sulu. “But why would they? If the Enterpriseis destroyed in Romulan space, even in an accident, nobody’s going to believe that the Romulans weren’t involved. And wouldn’t that drive the Klingons to side with the Federation if hostilities break out?” As she thought through the argument she was making, Linojj found that it made sense to her. That, in turn, brought relief, to know that the first shot of the war had likely notjust been fired.

Sulu nodded, although if in agreement or in simple acknowledgment, Linojj could not tell. “Ramesh,” Sulu said, turning to face him at the tactical-and-communications station at the aft section of the bridge, “get me the Tomed.”

Ambassador Gell Kamemor waited in her cabin on Algeron, peering out into space through the viewing port in her sleeping quarters. A sliver of her pallid face reflected on the oval pane, a sheer contrast to the onyx night beyond. Kamemor studied the arc of her waxen flesh, one ear sweeping upward to a graceful point, one eye staring relentlessly back at her. She did not appear nearly as weary as she felt.

Behind her, a clock kept time, its staccato ticking permeating the surrounding silence. Kamemor still had not completely decided on what actions she would take—or fail to take—in the next few minutes. She had pledged her cooperation to Captain Harriman, a man she had known—and trusted, at least to some extent—for some time, but what he had asked of her held danger not only for her, but for her people as well. If the captain had deceived her about Vokar, about the admiral’s intentions to instigate war no matter the circumstances, then aiding Harriman at this point might itself abet the start of hostilities. Kamemor had labored a very long time for peace, had struggled against prevailing sentiment that held war to be inevitable, and yet what she did or did not do in the next several moments might decide everything.

The tick, tick, tickof the clock seemed to echo the beating of her heart. Her thoughts drifted with the sound. The ebony expanse of space outside the viewing port faded, as did her ashen likeness, replaced in her mind by the faces of Ravent, her mate, and Sorilk, her son. Kamemor had visited Ravent only three times during the past year, on foreshortened trips back to their homeworld of Glintara. She had seen Sorilk just once, when the starship on which he served had stopped briefly at Algeron. And yet Ravent and Sorilk inspired most of the passion Kamemor devoted to crafting a lasting peace with the Klingons and the Federation. She knew that even a war in which the Empire eventually triumphed would put her loved ones at risk, and she could not countenance such a threat.

And is not almost everyone somebody’s loved one?Kamemor thought. Did the Empire not mourn the loss of even a single Romulan soldier? Would it be any different for Klingon or Federation citizens? The Klingons did not look upon the prospect of death in the same way that Romulans did—Klingons might be less reluctant to die under certain circumstances—but they still did not seek the ends of their lives.

A belief Kamemor embraced held that the measure of all sentient existence rose to infinite heights. A necessary corollary of that conviction gauged a Klingon life or a Federation life—Vulcan, human, Andorian, or whatever—as no more or less valuable than a Romulan life. The citizens of the Empire wanted none of their people to be killed in battle, but what they should have wanted was for no people, of any race, to be killed in battle. That meant seeking and sustaining peace, and Kamemor had dedicated her career to establishing equitable accords to do just that.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Now, though, she had to decide, had to figure out,who had told her the truth—if anybody even had. Klingon and Federation ambassadors and aides, her own aides, the Romulan Senate, the Klingon High Council, the Federation Council…alleged truths had come to her from many sources. Kamemor understood that in the world of diplomacy, a single word, a particular shade of meaning, could be employed to twist the truth in order to achieve some end. Words and ideas often became arguments to persuade, to threaten, to dissemble, all simply to bring about some course of action.

Did Harriman tell me the truth?she wondered. Did my aides?Did she herself fully grasp the nuances of all that had transpired these past few years, of all that had been said?

Right now, it came down to this: did she really know John Harriman, and could she– shouldshe—trust him? Should she be so wary of Admiral Vokar, a man whose sometimes-ruthless service record could not hide the heroic deeds he had achieved for the greater good and glory of the Empire?

A tone beeped in the room, and then repeated, vying for her attention with the ticking of the clock. Kamemor peered away from the viewing port and across the room, at the portable sensing device that sat on the shelf built into the bulkhead above her bed. Harriman had configured the scanner for her, and the signal told her that in nearby space, the crew of Enterprisefaced disaster, and the crew of Tomedwould shortly react to that crisis. The time had come for Kamemor to choose which course of action she would take.

She peered once more out the viewing port. She could not see Enterpriseor Tomedfrom here, nor could she see the beautiful, glistening colors of the Algeron Effect. But she did not need to see the sparkling remnants of Algeron III to be reminded of what had occurred in this system. Kamemor thought of the horrible weapon that had been wielded here, thought of the terrible destruction and death wreaked upon her people by a merciless enemy, and she knew that she could not let that happen to anybody else, Romulan or otherwise. There were lines that should never be crossed—not in everyday life, not in peacetime, not in wartime. Kamemor might not be able to prevent Vokar from perpetrating the heinous act of terror Harriman had accused him of planning, but she could try.

She stopped on her way out of her bedroom to deactivate the signal calling from the portable scanner, then tucked the scanner inside the folds of the long scarlet robe she wore. She then walked to the door to her quarters and stopped as it opened before her. She realized that this would probably be a defining moment of her life. With luck, no Romulan would ever know about it.

Kamemor strode through the door and down the corridor. She did not look back.

“Something is happening aboard Enterprise,”Sublieutenant Akeev said from the sciences station near the main viewscreen. Subcommander Renka Linavil peered down at the officer from the raised command chair at the rear of Tomed’s bridge. The sublieutenant’s tone had contained a recognizable note of agitation, but his words had conveyed a woeful lack of useful data. But Linavil immediately suspected treachery, perpetrated not against the Starfleet crew, but by them. She trusted the Federation not at all.

“Somethingis happening?” Linavil questioned, not even attempting to moderate the irritation she felt. Akeev had served under Admiral Vokar for years, and therefore should have known better than to offer up less than complete information. Had the admiral been on the bridge right now, rather than off-shift in his quarters, either the sublieutenant would have acted capably, or he would have found himself relieved of duty.

“Readings indicate abnormally high levels of radiation,” Akeev explained. He checked the console, and then added, “It’s coming from the impulse drive.”

“Full sensor sweep,” Linavil ordered. “Are they raising shields? Charging weapons?” She doubted the Enterprisecrew would be adopting an offensive—or even a defensive—posture in these circumstances, and Akeev should already have been monitoring the Starfleet vessel anyway. But her request for a complete sweep attended two purposes: first, to confirm Enterprise’s status, and second, to emphasize to the science officer the consequences of performing his duties less than rigorously.

“I’ve been monitoring continuously, Subcommander,” Akeev said, clearly abashed. “Enterprise’s shields remain down, and its weapons offline.” He consulted the sciences console before resuming. “The source of the radiation is the port impulse drive. The temperature in the reactor is also increasing.”

Linavil stood from the command chair and descended to the deck of the bridge. “What is happening?” she demanded. She saw the eyes of other bridge personnel turn toward her, but she continued to focus on Akeev.

“It’s difficult to know for sure,” the sublieutenant said, studying the readouts, “but it reads like a malfunction.”

“Are they in danger?” Linavil wanted to know. She peered at the main viewscreen, at the image of Enterpriseas it soared through space ahead of Tomed.

“If the temperature and radiation maintain their rises, yes,” Akeev said. “The reactor will go supercritical and explode.” The sublieutenant looked up, and Linavil saw what appeared to be satisfaction in his expression. If nothing else, it demonstrated why the officer, as bright a scientist as he was, had not attained a rank beyond the one he currently held.

“Can we prevent that from happening?” Linavil asked.

“Can we—?” Akeev started, evidently confused. “Subcommander?”

“It was a simple question, Sublieutenant,” Linavil said, marching across the bridge to the sciences station. “Can we prevent Enterprisefrom being destroyed?” She found Akeev’s shortsightedness disturbing, but it seemed obvious to her that the destruction of a Starfleet vessel in Romulan space—however it happened—would be viewed by both the Federation and the Klingons as an act of hostility. And even if the Romulan Star Empire did not need the Klingon Empire fighting by its side, it did not need the Klingons fighting alongside the Federation either. But she did not feel the need to explain this to Akeev. Instead, she said, “The Enterprisecrew must have detected the danger, and they clearly cannot shut their impulse drives down, otherwise they already would have done so. So is there something we can do to assist?”

“I…I don’t know,” Akeev stammered. “I’m not, uh, familiar with—”

“Shields down,” Linavil said, cutting off the sublieutenant both with her words and by turning her back to him as she looked toward the tactical station. “Be prepared to transport their crew into the cargo holds.”

“Yes, Subcommander,” responded the tactical officer.

Linavil turned toward the communications station. “Contact Enterprise,”she said.

“Subcommander,” the comm officer said, looking up from her console, “Enterpriseis hailing us.”

“Put them through,” Linavil said, and she peered toward the main viewscreen, prepared to face the enemy—and if necessary, help them.

Kamemor arrived at her destination, hastily consulted the scanner she had carried here, then quickly slipped inside. As the door slid shut behind her, the lighting in the room increased automatically from a low, standby level to station normal. She inspected the small room at once, her gaze darting from a lone, freestanding console on one side to an alcove on the other. As the scanner had told her, the room was empty.

Again keenly aware of her heart beating, Kamemor raced over to the console. I’m a diplomat,she thought, not an intelligence agent, not a saboteur.And yet here she stood, in an area of the Algeron station that, before now, she had only ever passed through.

She set down the scanner atop the console and studied the array of controls there. Captain Harriman had carefully described the layout to her, and she saw now that his instruction had been accurate. Kamemor did not question how a Starfleet officer had known such information, vaguely assuming the ephemeral nature of technological secrets.

She studied the panel closely, and at first she rushed too much, the complexity of the console nearly overwhelming her. Kamemor thought that she would not be able to do this, and in that moment of doubt, she dreaded the consequences of her failure more than the consequences of being labeled a traitor. She hadn’t fully realized it, but on her way here, and entering this room, and even standing here peering down at this console, she had not been completely committed to this course of action.

Now she was. For the good of the Empire, she had to do this.

Kamemor concentrated on the console. She did as Harriman had suggested, and isolated only those controls that she would need. She found the targeting sensors first, and then the activation sequencer. One by one, she located all the necessary controls. When she had finished, she raised her arms and positioned her hands above the panel, then reviewed the progression of actions the captain had detailed for her. Finally, knowing that her window of opportunity was rapidly closing, and wanting to finish here and flee this room, Kamemor acted.

Her fingers moved carefully across the console. She hesitated briefly before operating each control, revisiting and reconfirming her memory of what Harriman had told her to do. If she did not do this correctly, then none of her actions and none of her decisions would have any meaning.

Everything she did seemed to work. Readings and confirmation indicators appeared on the readout as she’d been told they would, until she came to the final step. Once more, she paused, not from any reservations about completing this undertaking, but because once she had, there would be no way to reverse it. And if she had done something wrong along the way, then she might just as easily kill Captain Harriman as help his cause.

Kamemor operated the last control.

A surge of emotional energy coursed through her body, and a thought– What have I done?—bloomed in her mind. But she knew that she would not learn the answer to that question right away.

Using the same care that she had already shown, and continuing to follow Harriman’s directions, she sent her fingers back across the console, hiding the evidence of her handiwork. When she had finished, she retrieved the scanner and verified that the corridor outside the room was clear. Then, returning the scanner to its hiding place amid the material of her robe, Kamemor exited the transporter room, walking into a future that she had just tried to cast, but not knowing yet what that future would actually hold.

Rafaele Buonarroti crawled along the Jefferies tube, the metal grating hard against his knees even through the material of the environmental suit he wore. A loud, deep drone filled the area, joined by a higher-pitched, tremulous whine. The sounds conducted through the air, through the decking, through the environmental suit, causing a sensation like insects crawling all over his body. Normal engineering procedures restricted access to this section of the ship when the impulse engines were engaged, but the situation right now had deviated far from normal.

Buonarroti tilted his head—an awkward movement with his helmet on—and peered past his feet to where Lieutenant Trent clambered along after him. They’d left their comm channels open, and Buonarroti heard Trent’s breathing beginning to become a bit labored. “Are you all right, Gray?” he asked, having to raise his voice to be heard above the ambient sounds of the drive.

“Yeah,”Trent said around mouthfuls of air. “I’m okay. It’s just a little hot in here.”

“Don’t worry about the heat,” Buonarroti quipped. “Long before we burn up, the radiation will kill us.” Trent actually laughed at that, despite the truth contained in the joke. While the environmental suits would have safeguarded them from the standard temperature and radiation levels of the impulse engines for a matter of hours, now they would provide only minutes of protection. Lieutenant Commander Linojj had been able to shut down the starboard engine, but the port reactor remained online, deuterium fuel apparently flowing uncontrolled into its core. And that meant that somebody had to come here to attempt a repair of the problem.

Buonarroti looked ahead again, pulling himself along in the enclosed space. He glanced at the data on the readout strip sliding down the left side of his faceplate, and saw that he and Trent had only thirteen minutes left before the radiation levels here would begin affecting their bodies. The sections surrounding the port impulse engine, he knew, were already being evacuated.

A minute later, Buonarroti arrived at the engineering panel that allowed access to the deuterium-flow regulator for the port reactor. He stopped and climbed onto his knees, then reached forward to remove the panel, his movements slowed by the environmental suit. The panel came away from the bulkhead easily, the magnetic locks giving way under the force of his pull. He set it to one side and peered in at the regulator. A readout on it indicated the runaway nature of the hydrogen-isotope stream pouring through its electromagnetic control field.

Buonarroti believed that the symptoms of the problem pointed to a disruption of that control field. That likely meant either a physical defect or a programmatic problem in the regulator; because the diagnostic code in the firmware had failed to identify any physical defects, he therefore suspected the latter, which was why he had brought Trent down here with him. It had also occurred to Buonarroti that Enterprise,sitting docked at a Romulan space station, might have been sabotaged, but at the moment that possibility mattered little to him; he only cared about diagnosing and then repairing the problem.

He pulled a tricorder from where it hung on his environmental suit, along with two fiber-optic leads. He quickly attached the thin glass wires to the tricorder, then reached in and connected the other ends to the regulator. He worked the controls on both devices, scrutinizing their displays. He had expected the root cause of the problem to reveal itself immediately, but instead, he detected nothing wrong.

On his faceplate, he saw that he and Trent had only ten minutes of safety left. If they had not fixed the problem in that time, he knew that they would continue to search for a solution, but their probability of surviving the situation unharmed, if at all, would rapidly decrease to zero.

“Gray,” Buonarroti said, and he handed the tricorder to Trent. The computer scientist took it, holding it in both of his gloved hands, his strained breathing loud over the comm system. He studied the readout for just a few seconds.

“There’s nothing wrong here,”he said. “The operating system is functioning perfectly.”

“But how can there be no problem to report,” Buonarroti asked, “when there clearly isa problem?”

Trent nodded. “Let me check the verification routines.”He operated the controls of the tricorder, then looked up and pointed into the bulkhead at the regulator. “I need to get in there,”he said.

Buonarroti quickly scrambled farther down the Jefferies tube, clearing the way for Trent in front of the engineering panel. Trent moved forward as well, then reached inside. Buonarroti watched as the lieutenant pressed the control pad on the regulator, causing text—lines of code, Buonarroti assumed—to march across its display.

A minute passed. Then another. Buonarroti felt perspiration rolling down his body inside the environmental suit, a result not of the heat, he thought, so much as of the time growing short. He imagined the heavy atoms of hydrogen screaming past the regulator, unconstrained as they fed the fusion reactions in the impulse engine. Like having too many logs on a fire, the increase in the number of atomic reactions in the core would eventually generate more energy than could be contained in the reactor.

Seven minutes left.

“I’ve got it,”Trent said at last. “The diagnostics aren’t checking out. The checksum routines seem to be off.”He worked the controls on the regulator’s panel for a moment more, then began operating the tricorder

“Can you fix it?” Buonarroti asked.

“I’m trying,”Trent said. “I’m recoding the safety routines, reestablishing the parity bits.”

Six minutes left. Then five.

“Uploading,”Trent said, peering into the bulkhead. Buonarroti followed his gaze, and saw a warning message scroll across the regulator display. Around them, the resonant hum of the port impulse engine, along with the sickly whine permeating it, began to fade. He looked up at Trent. “Error detection is now functioning,”the computer scientist said. “There’s a flaw in the regulator surface. Automatic shutdown is in progress.”

Buonarroti leaned in beside Trent and touched a control on the tricorder. Sensor readings of the reactor core appeared on the display. The radiation and temperature levels had stopped their precipitous climbs, and as he watched, they even began to recede.

“Let’s get out of here,” Buonarroti said, pointing past Trent back down the Jefferies tube.

“Bridge to Buonarroti.”Sulu’s voice came over the comm system as the two men began to crawl back the way they had come. “You’ve done it.”

“Yes, Captain,” Buonarroti confirmed. “Trent did.”

“Good work,”Sulu said.

“We’re on our way back to the bridge,” Buonarroti said.

“I look forward to your report,”Sulu said. “Out.”As the two made their way through the Jefferies tube toward the corridor, Buonarroti checked the readout on his faceplate. Seconds continued to tick off from their margin of safety. 3:57. 3:56. 3:55.

“We had more than four minutes left,” Buonarroti told Trent. “That wasn’t even dramatic.”

“Sorry,” Trent said. “Next time.”

“Yeah, next time,” Buonarroti agreed. “I can hardly wait.”

Sulu noticed the eyes first. The gray irises mimicked the color of ash, and appeared as cold as the remnants of a fire long extinguished. The glare of the Romulan admiral felt penetrating, even on the viewscreen.

“We have replaced the defective part,” Sulu said, standing at the center of the bridge, directly behind Linojj and Tolek at the helm and navigation stations. The admiral regarded her impassively. So thin that he could almost be called gaunt, he had straight, silvering hair and deep lines drawn around his mouth.

“And you are satisfied that there will be no additional…mishaps?” Vokar said. The hesitation in his words clearly marked his skepticism that what had occurred aboard Enterprisehad been accidental. But if he implied that Starfleet would have sacrificed a ship and crew in Romulan space in order to gain the allegiance of the Klingons in a war, then Vokar did not know the Federation as well as he obviously thought he did.

“Yes, Admiral,” Sulu said. “We are satisfied.” Buonarroti and Trent had concluded that the microfracture in the deuterium-flow regulator had probably been the result of a flaw introduced during the manufacturing process. After a certain amount of stress from usage, the flaw had given way, allowing the microscopic fissure to form. They had also theorized that the error in the firmware had been caused by the subsequent irregularity in the device’s electromagnetic field. And since Sulu saw no advantage to the Romulans destroying Enterprisewithin their territory—the Klingons would never have believed that such an event had been an accident—she accepted the judgments of Buonarroti and Trent.

“We’ve also inspected our starboard impulse assembly,” Sulu continued, “as well as our warp drive.” The ship’s engineering and computer-science crews had taken nearly an entire day to thoroughly examine and test all of the engines, and they had encountered no further difficulties. “We’re ready to resume our journey back to the Federation.”

“Excellent,” Vokar said, though his expression remained stoic, and his voice as icy as his gaze. “Then you’ll start at once?” He delivered the statement less like a question than an order.

“Commander,” Sulu said, still looking at the image of Vokar on the main viewscreen, but speaking instead to Linojj. “Full impulse power. Get us out of here.”

Vokar did not move—not a brow, not an eyelid, not a muscle—giving the impression that he might not even have heard Sulu. But then the viewscreen blinked, and a vista of stars replaced the view of the Romulan admiral.

“They ended the communication on their end,” Lieutenant Kanchumurthi said.

“Acknowledged,” Sulu said. She reached up and placed her hand atop Linojj’s shoulder. “I meant it, Xintal,” she said. “Get us out of here.”

“Aye, Captain,” Linojj said. “With pleasure.” As she worked the helm, the bass thunder of the impulse drive rose around them. This time, it stayed steady.

Sulu sat down in the command chair, pleased and relieved to finally be under way again. A few moments later, Linojj reported that the ship had attained full impulse velocity, and shortly after that, she noted that Enterprisehad left the boundaries of the Algeron system. “Take us to warp five,” Sulu said, and Linojj executed the order.

With Tomedfollowing, Enterpriseand its crew raced for home.

Harriman stood at the base of a well that served as the junction for several equipment conduits. He continually checked his sensor veil to ensure that he, Gravenor, and Vaughn could not be detected by scans. He also consulted his tricorder regularly, performing passive inspections of the surrounding areas; just because the trio couldn’t be scanned didn’t mean that some Romulan might not stumble upon them by chance.

On the other side of the junction well, Commander Gravenor squatted beside an open panel, her hands buried deep inside the exposed equipment. Several fiber-optic bundles wound from out of the bulkhead and connected to a Romulan scanner sitting beside her on the deck. Beside Gravenor, Lieutenant Vaughn kneeled before another open panel.

The commander looked ridiculous to Harriman. The Romulan uniform she wore—with a dark blue sash that indicated her position in engineering—seemed too bulky for her, particularly in light of her diminutive size. Her yellowed complexion and pointed ears seemed more like parts of a costume than natural components of her body. And worst of all, the wig of straight black hair she wore appeared completely out of place on her.

Peering down at Vaughn, who also wore Imperial Fleet garments, Harriman thought that he looked as silly—or maybe even sillier—than Gravenor. The lieutenant’s rugged face and piercing blue eyes did not seem suited to either a Romulan complexion or the straight black hair that went along with it. Vaughn’s appearance struck Harriman as so comical that he actually had to stifle a laugh, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. He found it remarkable that he could be so amused in circumstances such as these.

Maybe that was it, though; maybe—no, definitely—he’d had enough of these circumstances. Harriman wanted to end all of this—with the Romulans, with the Klingons—as soon as possible. Which was why he had gone to Starfleet’s commander in chief with this plan in the first place.

“Excuse me, sir?” Vaughn said, peering up over his shoulder at Harriman. “Did you say something?”

“No,” he said. “Just clearing my throat.” Harriman himself wore a Starfleet uniform, the insignia on his shoulder and sleeve indicating a rank of lieutenant commander. If they did encounter a Romulan officer, Gravenor and Vaughn would masquerade as Romulans who had captured a Starfleet spy. It might not work for more than a few seconds, but any time at all might allow them to extricate themselves from such a situation. Beneath the hem of his uniform jacket, Harriman carried a phaser; Gravenor and Vaughn each carried a Romulan disruptor pistol.

“Captain,” Gravenor said. She examined the readout of the scanner that she had connected to the ship’s circuitry. “We’re turning.” Harriman waited as the commander studied the display. “They’ve set a course for Romulus,” she said. “Warp eight.”

Harriman nodded. “All right,” he said, glancing over at Vaughn to include him. “Let’s get to work.”

The three Starfleet officers moved in unison, each knowing their responsibilities as they set to take control of Tomed.